Summary The Cessna 172 departed Boundary Bay airport, British Columbia, on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight to Nanaimo and climbed to 2,000 feet above sea level (asl) in accordance with a clearance issued from the Vancouver departure controller. About the same time, a Canadian Regional de Havilland DHC-8, flight number 1360 (CDR1360), was inbound to Vancouver from Victoria at 3,000 feet asl and was nearing Boundary Bay. CDR1360 was operating IFR under the control of the Vancouver arrival controller, and the Cessna was operating IFR under the control of the Vancouver departure controller; the Cessna 172 departure clearance had not been coordinated with the Vancouver arrival controller. The arrival controller saw the Cessna 172 in level flight at 2,000 feet asl and assumed that it was operating under visual flight rules (VFR). The arrival controller issued a clearance to CDR1360 for a visual approach to runway 26 right, with a restriction to maintain 2,500 feet until established on final approach. CDR1360 descended out of 3,000 feet and passed to nautical miles (nm) behind, and about 500 feet above the Cessna 172, and both aircraft were in level flight as they passed. The separation standard required is 3 nm or 1,000 feet vertically. There was no risk of collision. Ce rapport est galement disponible en franais. Other Factual Information At the time of the incident, the Vancouver area control centre (ACC) terminal specialty was operating with the following five control positions open: arrival; departure; data; VFR Terminal Area; and, coordinator. The terminal specialty was short two staff members at the time of the occurrence, and the supervisor was attempting to schedule relief breaks for the various control positions. The arrival position was being used to conduct training with a qualified on-job-instructor (OJI) remaining responsible for the position, while overseeing the actions of the trainee. During on-job-instruction, the attention of an OJI must be divided between monitoring information on the radar scope and monitoring the student's actions. Throughout a training session, it remains the responsibility of the OJI to ensure that all control actions are taken in accordance with approved standards and procedures. In addition to his control responsibilities, the OJI must determine when would be the best time to make a teaching point with the student, or to debrief some situation that they may have recently encountered. This range of activities requires high levels of attention and vigilance as well as an ability to effectively manage available time. However, human attention is a limited resource, and an OJI will not be able to adequately process as many information sources, in a divided attention situation, as he could otherwise process in a routine control situation. The air traffic services (ATS) network attempts to mitigate this risk by directing that all control activities are to take precedence over training functions. There are several small airports in the vicinity of the Vancouver International Airport (VIA) and movements to and from these airports must be integrated into the VIA traffic flow. Boundary Bay is one of these small airports and is located about 10 nm southeast of VIA. The Boundary Bay airport has a control zone that extends out to 3 nm and up to 1,500 feet. The runway in use at VIA, at the time of the incident, was runway 26. When runway 26 is in use, the Boundary Bay control zone underlies the Vancouver arrival controller's airspace. Under these conditions, the Vancouver terminal specialty procedures, Article 350.3, require that any IFR departures out of Boundary Bay be controlled by the arrival controller. Changes can be made to a published procedure, but these changes must be coordinated between the involved controllers. In this incident, article 350.3 of the terminal procedures was not followed; it was the departure controller who received the flight data strip for the Cessna 172 and planned to control the aircraft from the departure position. Under these circumstances, because the departing aircraft would be required to enter the arrival controller's airspace, it was necessary to coordinate the flight with the arrival controller. Information obtained during interviews following this occurrence showed that this work practice was not uncommon, and that the procedural defence provided by article 350.3 was routinely being circumvented by an internal coordination between the departure and arrival controller. Article 300.2 of the Vancouver terminal specialty procedures states, in part, that coordination is the sole responsibility of the coordinator...and shall not be initiated by other control positions. In this incident, the departure controller informed the coordinator about the departing Boundary Bay aircraft, and the coordinator provided a release authority for the flight. The coordinator was then required to inform the arrival controller about the Boundary Bay departure; however, the coordinator had noticed that the arrival controller was busy debriefing his trainee about another issue, and, because he was aware that there is often a delay of up to 10 minutes between the time of release and the actual takeoff time, the coordinator decided that it would be more effective to pass information regarding the Boundary Bay departure after the aircraft was airborne. At this point, the supervisor returned to the terminal specialty from a break and initiated several position changes to allow some relief for the controllers. As one of these changes, the coordinator was moved to the departure control position. During the hand-off, the outgoing coordinator omitted to brief his replacement about the un-coordinated departure from Boundary Bay. A position hand-off guideline is posted at each control position and is available for use as a memory aid when transferring the responsibility of a control sector to another controller. The first item on the hand-off guideline requires the departing controller to brief on potential conflicting, and arrival/departure traffic information.... The published hand-off guideline was not used by the departing coordinator when he was relieved. Instead, he used a mental checklist as the basis for covering the essential items of information; the resultant briefing did not include information related to the un-coordinated Boundary Bay departure and the potential conflict that it could cause. It is generally accepted by the terminal controllers and supervisors interviewed, that use of this type of formal job-aid is not essential, and that the use of a mental checklist is adequate. There were no visual cues or job aids at the coordinator's work station that would have highlighted that the coordination of the Boundary Bay departure had not been completed. As a result, the incoming coordinator was forced to rely on the memory and thoroughness of the departing coordinator to update him on the expected activity from Boundary Bay. Air traffic control (ATC) use various visual displays to communicate information that will enable a controller to make decisions or take action. In the design of an ATC display, it is important that the symbols used be easily recognized and understood. Additionally, it is important that these symbols are interpreted in a consistent way by all controllers, otherwise there may be an elevated risk of error if the same symbol has one meaning for one controller but a different meaning for another. In the Vancouver ACC, there is no consistent, single method of identifying a VFR flight using the information provided in the aircraft's data tag. In some circumstances VFR flights may be assigned an abbreviated identifier; or they may be assigned a full identifier with a V included in a separate field in the tag; or, occasionally, they may be assigned a full identifier, without the V, in which case they may be distinguishable as VFR aircraft by noting the controller's jurisdiction symbol (CJS). On the other hand, IFR flights are consistently assigned full 5-letter identifiers to make them distinguishable as operating IFR. The Cessna 172 departing from Boundary Bay had displayed an aircraft identifier of C-GHNV. When the Cessna 172 departed from Boundary Bay, the departure controller believed that the data tag clearly indicated it was an IFR flight because of its full 5-letter data tag, coupled with the departure controller's CJS. When the aircraft reached 2,000 feet agl, the departure controller overheard the arrival controller discussing with the trainee both the presence of the Cessna 172 and the wake turbulence separation requirements that would have been relevant between it and CDR1360. As a result, the departure controller concluded that it would be unnecessary to point the aircraft out, or to inform the arrival controller that the Cessna 172 was operating under IFR. The Vancouver terminal specialty is physically located near the main entrance to the operations room. Space is limited, and all control positions are situated near, or adjacent to, each another. It is common in this environment for one controller to observe and overhear the activities taking place at another control position. In general, the close proximity of the control positions appears to have influenced the development of a number of informal work practices; communication between work stations is often accomplished without the use of the ACC interphone system, and some controllers are apparently adjusting their work practices based on activities that are being conducted at other control positions. The departure controller did not hear the arrival controller issue the approach clearance for a visual approach to runway 26 right with a restriction to maintain 2,500 feet until established on final approach to CDR1360, but did note that CDR1360 had begun a descent. He quickly interceded to inform the arrival controller of the problem.